Mom back to Fort Hood just before murder-suicide

SAN ANTONIO — Pfc. Carla Santisteban returned to Fort Hood from Afghanistan at 4:24 a.m. Tuesday.

“In Fort Hood!” she wrote on Facebook.

Three hours later, her husband, Rouhad Ahamd Ezzeddine, and their two daughters Leila Rouhad, 9, and Zeinab Rouhad, 4, were dead.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Command said Ezzeddine, a 43-year-old civilian, was believed to have killed the girls.

So far CID isn't saying how that happened or provide details of the circumstances, but authorities say the girls and their father were found dead at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday in a home in Fort Hood's Pershing Park.

The Army late Thursday identified the father as the likely killer in a murder-suicide case.

“This is a terrible tragedy for the mother and families of these children,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony Ierardi, Fort Hood senior commander and commanding general of 1st Cavalry Division. “We are doing everything possible to care for the family in this time of profound grief and loss.”

The CID statement said the incident occurred in the wife's residence. The Army said Santisteban is assigned to a support battalion with the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team.

Just a week ago, things seemed upbeat as Santisteban, an Army medical logistics specialist, prepared to come home. On a Facebook page filled with photos of herself and her girls, one of them holding a doll, she was full of anticipation as her homecoming neared.

“In Manas!!!” she wrote on Jan. 17. “Out of Afghaniland!!! Yoohoo!!”

At 6:32 a.m. the next day, she posted, “Home is not home without MOM.”

A few hours later she sat with friends wearing standard-issue Army windbreakers.

“My turn for a drink!” she wrote.

The posts stopped after her arrival home. Sometime around noon Thursday, Santisteban, 33, posted a photo of her daughters, both smiling, and another snapshot of herself with the girls.

She didn't comment.

But one Santisteban post Jan. 12 hinted of anger.

“A relationship is only for two,” it read, “but some (expletive) don't know how to count.”